Ken Mercer CSCOPE Update I

Ken Mercer Update on CScope – Part I of III

“I believe that if moms and dads do not have the right to see what their children are being taught in school, then we are no longer living in a place called the United States of America.”Ken Mercer

11 February 2013

On Friday, November 15, 2012 at the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) meeting, I moved that we ask for oversight and review of the online curriculum program known as CSCOPE. My motion was in response to the concerns and outrage over CSCOPE by parents, classroom teachers, and the public.

Though my colleagues on the Board (Nov. 15, 2012) voted down my motion, within a few days our concerns with CSCOPE went statewide and then to national programs such as Glenn Beck, World Net Daily, and Fox News.

In this first of three articles, I want to share three (there are more) of my issues with CSCOPE:

First, I believe CSCOPE violates the rights of parents to review the curriculum taught to their children in public schools. Texas law clearly affirms that right. As reported by the online publication, WorldNetDaily.com:

“Most of the state’s classrooms, some 80 percent, are using the CSCOPE program that also has raised eyebrows because educators had refused to allow parents and others to see what was being taught.”

In fact, I was provided a ten-page contract that classroom educators had to sign if they utilize the CSCOPE curriculum. The contract prohibited, under penalty of law, our classroom teachers from sharing the lessons with parents.

I believe that if moms and dads do not have the right to see what their children are being taught in school, then we are no longer living in a place called the United States of America.

Second, the CSCOPE curriculum is not under the oversight of the SBOE. All other publishers must submit their curriculum materials to SBOE review committees that determine the percentage of compliance with Texas’ standards. Yet CSCOPE is a digital curriculum, developed at taxpayer expense; and my fellow Board members chose to vote down my motion requiring that same review process.

And finally, here are a few examples of the outrageous content in CSCOPE Social Studies:
· Boston Tea Party was an act of terrorism.
· Christianity is a “cult,” and early Christians were “cannibals,” i.e. the Eucharist.
· Students were forced to draw a Socialist flag while imagining a new Socialist country.

Thankfully, because the grassroots citizens of Texas made their voices heard (many in my own SBOE district), CSCOPE started removing some of the biased lessons during the past thirty days.

My next two updates will share: (1) the results of the Senate Public Education hearing on CSCOPE, and (2) a press release by my friend, Sen. Dan Patrick, Chair of the Committee on Public Education.

Comments

This has been going on for years in the U.S. public and private educational system. I sent my kid to private Christian school (great school) then private Christian college after watching this non religeois video below called IndoctrinateU.com and guess what? In the end, Socialist/Marxist Christian theology was in the private Christian college I sent her too!! She would have been fine bc she studied science but the man she fell in love with (also white American like herself) and eventually married got brainwashed in college seminary classes when he went down to the South. You mnow where the Marxist Christian organizations flourish. ones similar to the Siuthern Poverty Law center but Christian orgs… He came back blaming the “white man” for all the worlds troubles… And hes white, blonde hair blue eyes! They are brainwashed with white guilt. Social justice crap.

Basically never forget the Marxist “ends justify thier means”…
A free market capitalist professor in the movie IndoctrinateU says, “You can get the students to be pursuaded about a couple of basic ideas anout the nature of reality you can go aling way in succeeding in a social re-engineering project”. http://youtu.be/WHyvRHrYYBA

Thank you for your comments. I am 71, white female who has watched our education system slowly decay because of many of the PC garbage. When schools first integrated in Houston, I was there through the violence–I was there when my principal informed the teaching staff that the black students did not have the same education background and thus, grading would have to be altered. It was done a bit more covert with this statement, “If 25% of your students fail, that means that you are only 75% effective as a teacher.” Well grades improved, but learning declined. All the students suffered. There was a leveling of the playing field via lowering of standards. Instead of providing an equal opportunity of education for all children no matter their race, via the federal government $ which is always tied to binding cords that restrict progress, education in America declined. Did integration negatively affect the education standards in America–you bet it did but not because of differences in abilities to learn. The problem then as well as now is that we are still segregating grades by races. If there are four black children in a school and two of them fail a STAAR test, that means 50% of this represented race in the school failed. TEA swoops in and takes over the school to level the playing field.
When are we going to stop counting kids by the color of their skin? This is just a side issue with education but a very important one. Teachers are under a lot of stress and with CSCOPE we are losing teachers who can get out.

Everything about CSCOPE and the
people who it is patterned after have the evil intent of controlling the minds of our children

CSCOPE promotes the idea of being controversial, being argumentative–no respect.
We can stop CSCOPE.
Use this link for a sample request with state code of your rights as a parent. Demand hard copies of CSCOPE lessons. Demand to see the CSCOPE tests your children take. Find out if the test actually match what is being taught.http://www.txcscopereview.com/2013/letter-to-superintendent/

I was sorry to hear that Ken Mercer’s attempt to get the Cscope program under the review of the State Board failed. With the new decisions concerning Cscope I find myself still asking why this program is allowed in our schools. The lessons for teaching our children, especially those at risk, should not be anything like the version of Cscope that we heard about in testimony. Another source should be sought out.

Texas Education Service Centers are at the bottom of all of this. Contact your senator and representative and request that the ESCs not be allowed to sell any products. This will put a stop to CSCOPE and will not allow them to create any future materials.

Also ask your state senator to find out why the groups Texas Association of School Administrators and Texas Association of School Boards. TASA and TASB are being financed with school taxes and why these groups are investigating ways to implement the Obama common core curriculum in our Texas Schools.

Ask your representative to support Rep. Drew Springer HB 158 for family values.